Old Settlers Bluegrass Music Festival 2013

Verna is quite the photographer and snapped this photo, I thought it was pretty great.
Can't get much more Texas than this photo. 

         We went to the annual bluegrass festival this past weekend and camped for 3 days. We had a great time with a little relaxation, in addition to listening to some good music, eating good food and visiting with friends. A lot of the musician groups are bands we were not familiar with, which is half the fun of hearing new types of music. However, there are always some Texas locals playing every year which is always fun to see. This year was especially fun in that Verna was able to join us, and get her Texas groove on. The weather was chilly for April in Central Texas. It was in the low 40's at night, which is pretty darn cold in a pop-up camper. We were lucky enough to have friends with an RV that shared their electricity with us and we had a little space heater, which was a life saver. The other fantastic thing our RV friends shared was their hot water. Yup, I was that excited!! Washing your face, dishes, everything is frigid cold water gets pretty old very fast. It was camping in luxury and we could have prolonged it several more days, but back to the real world. 

        Sam was only 9 months old last year, so he got a lot more out of camping this year. He LOVED the camper, it was his own little Sam sized house. In and out of the door a million times. We brought his little Play School picnic table, and we all ended up using it for our meals. He was a trooper and slept really well through the loud music playing at all the campsites early into the morning hours. And he slept in his stroller in the evening so we could enjoy some of the night time bands. It was the saddest thing the morning we were packing to leave. As Quinn took the first load of stuff to the truck, Sam realized what was happening, and he laid on the camper floor crying, no, no, no, no....All in all, it was a successful festival and weekend, 12 loads of laundry later. 

Hanging out in the camper in the morning, waiting for the sun to warm things up a bit.
 Sam had his bag of books and toys to keep him occupied. He just loved this camper. 

So this a few of the important life lessons Aunties teach. How to lick an ice cream cone. It took several attempts and half her ice cream, but there was success!

So this is about 6:45am in the freezing camper.  Since a lot of campers don't have children, and are still sleeping until 10am, we worked our hardest to keep him contained until at least 7:30am or so. This is pretty difficult when only a sheet of canvas separates us and is not at all a sound barrier. We had to resort to the "Elmo Pad." It had to be done for the sake of others. 

Doing a little hiking and rock throwing. Yup, this is like at 8:30 am. We had the camp grounds explored at an early hour, and to the little park area twice by early afternoon. When you wake up early, there's lots of time for walking and exploring, which was really nice and peaceful.  How many Friday mornings do you get to wander through a river bed and skipping rocks into the water. 

I love this man. This picture is just so Quinn in his element of nature. 

Family picture, but Sam looks a little startled. 

Yes, the big bass made the trip. We have several friends who play guitar and
 sing and we get to meet up each year to play. 

And this year, Daddy had some help. Luckily, Sam banging on the strings below didn't really interrupt Quinn's playing.
Sam added his own bit of percussion by banging on the base, it was pretty cute. He also likes to play guitar. He can strum if you finger the chords. He's a budding musician. 

Enjoying the sun, had to cover up this very fair skinned baby of ours. 

Over view of the small stage.

Oh, so pretty. Sam likes to wear clips in his hair and found this somewhere and put it in his hair.
I know, probably yuck, but what can you do when he is this cute and happy wearing a blue flower clip. 

Good morning Verna. Making her morning coffee and trying to shake the chill of the morning.

So this is the cooking and bathing station. No baths for 3 days, so he pretty much just got dunked in this
 bucket at least once a day. Hygiene isn't on the top of the list for many bluegrass campers. 

Mmmm, brats for dinner at the baby sized picnic table. 

Our fun little camp site!

Doing dishes with Aunt Verna. This is the friends RV that has hot water, and he was so kind to share.
We will forever be camping next to him for the rest of our lives. 

Sam had so much room to run and play. It was great, we could just sit in our chairs relaxing and
watch him run in all directions, just wearing himself out and having a great time. 

Members of the flannel club. Father like son. 

This is our dear friend Joe, who we camp with each year at this festival. Joe is the owner of the RV with electricity and hot water. He and Quinn are old construction diver co-workers and buddies. Always so much fun camping with him and his family and playing music together.